"The Things I Cannot Change"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that social forces at play in this family demonstrate the challenges to individuals to maintain a social and cultural appearance of respectability and control in times when their own personal control is very limited. The author points out that the family's size, nine children soon to 10, is an extreme dynamic of the family. The paper relates that, due to the relatively young age of the children, the oldest being 12 and the youngest yet to be born; the limitation of the older children to care for the younger children is reflected in the family and the strain on the parents; the children also interact almost exclusively with one another and have very few outside friends.

From the Paper:

"The mother is soft spoken so much so that her representation of self is cowed and her voice seems not to be heard by the officials, she sees in an attempt to gain help for her family. They seem willing to offer her very little help, other than limited support for her pregnancy. Her demeanor is an almost constant representation of powerlessness and lack of personal control. Collectively they have chosen not to use medical intervention to limit their family size, through either fear of the unknown or ignorance of the medical care available and this may also be a source of the official rejection of help for the family. Additionally, both parents are limited in the amount of unofficial social support, as they do not attend church or really do anything outside of the daily drudge of earning a living in the case of the father and taking care of children in the case of the mother. They do not have friends near by who will help them in times of need and they do not maintain connections with extended family that might serve the same purpose."

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